Earth Is About To Change
by erttheking
Summary: The Lone Wanderer had protected the Capital Wasteland from as much as he could. But even he has his work cut out for him when it comes to a force from another world. Fortunately, he finds a new ally in this trying time. Patreon sponsored one-shot


"FUCK!" Franco Perez, commander of the Lyon's Pride ever since Sarah had been forced to leave it to become Elder, was certain he was about to die. A small, purple craft arced over the Citadel, streams of plasma raining down on them. The only warning that they had had was the sound of the sound barrier being broken before the ramparts had been obliterated by the first run. The forwardmost wall had already been reduced to rubble, at least a dozen dead, and now the ship was strafing the rubble for survivors. The smell of burnt flesh was assaulting his nose with such ferocity that he was certain that he was about to wretch. The Pride had all hands on deck and was firing frantically at the craft, but it had shown no signs of slowing down. If this thing could travel between stars and had been designed for combat, Franco wasn't sure what weapons they had that could do it.

That hadn't stopped them from trying. Glade had swapped out his usual minigun for a missile launcher and had managed to get a few hits in while Franco had been blasting the Tesla Cannon any time he had gotten a chance. Unless they were mistaken, the craft had started to smoke after a few good hits, but anything manmade would've been reduced to a smoldering pile of rubble long before they had ever gotten to this point. Even if they managed to kill it by whittling away at it, by that time the Citadel would be in ruins with nearly all hands lost at this rate.

"Vargas!" Franco said, ducking behind a bit of rubble that they had managed to push up to act as makeshift cover. "Get on the horn to Sarah, tell her that she may want to consider a full evacuation of the Citadel. If she says it's risky, let her know that the Citadel will be everyone's coffin if they stay!" Vargas nodded, lowering his laser rifle and picking up the receiver to the Pride's radio.

"INCOMING!" Glade shouted, letting another missile loose. The craft had come around for another pass. The way it moved didn't seem possible, it arced and turned with the grace of a dancer, not a machine of death. It turned about from its last strafing run with a full 180-degree turn that it managed to pull off in a mere second, barely changing its heading in order to do so. No vertibird could pull off a maneuver like that at that speed, and Marco severely doubted that even Pre-War jets had been able to do something like that without ripping themselves in half. These aliens, whatever they were, would've been a match for humanity at its peak. What the hell were they supposed to do against them post-war?

His line of thought was broken as the craft tore overhead, raining plasma down on the Citadel. The already gaping hole in the outer walls was torn open even wider and screams of pain echoed from the other side. Marco's heart hammered in his chest. How many members of the Brotherhood were already dead? How many more would die in the next hour? Heaving the Tesla cannon over his shoulder, a feat made easy by his T-51b power armor, he took aim and fired. A streak of white light flashed through the air and hit the alien ship right in the belly. It stuttered and swerved to the side ever so slightly, but quickly corrected itself.

"That settles it," Marco said bitterly. "Vargas and Glade, you stay here with me. We're gonna keep pounding the son of a bitch until it goes down or we get fried. Everyone else, get back inside and help Sarah with the evacuation." Marco had expected at least one of the Pride to object to his plan, perhaps even hoped. He was, after all, dedicating half of the unit to something that was looking suspiciously like a suicide mission. Instead, all he received as a response was a series of grim nods. Things were so bad that not one of them was saying a word of protest. Vargas and Glade were more than willing to walk to their deaths with him. And he had been willing to give that order.

"We're gonna draw it as far away from the Citadel as we can," Marco said. A mile would be nothing short of a miracle, but it was something he would be aiming for. If Liberty Prime had been functional, maybe this would've turned out differently. But even with the repair materials he had discovered from Mothership Zeta, the first clue to him and the Brotherhood that they weren't alone in the galaxy, the giant machine was still months out from being fully operational. It didn't matter at this point. The Brotherhood had to stay alive, even if it was in retreat and disgrace. "Maintain radio silence once you're in the clear, that thing will be able to intercept our communications without an issue. Go to ground and do whatever Sarah tells you to. You're hers again."

He turned and darted out of cover, Vargas and Glade right behind him. Well. This was it. The escape from Vault 101, scrambling for a discarded and dented Fat Man as a Super Mutant Behemoth roared and tore through the panicking Brotherhood, his lonely venture into the depths of Vault 87, the war with the Enclave, and this was what would finally claim his life. He had had a good run. Deathclaws had nearly taken his head off as he had stumbled around dumbly, reducing him to a blubbering and screaming mess as he ran and sprayed fire behind him. Ghouls had swarmed at him in the depths of the D.C. sewer as he barely was able to gun them down in time. Plasma had burnt off his armor as he forced his way through the Mobile Crawler to crush the fascists who claimed to be the true government of America. He was lucky in a way he didn't really want to admit. His death would be meaningful. He hoped.

But before he had gotten more than ten feet from cover, the ground shook. The vibrations were so fierce that he was brought to an abrupt halt, leaning against the ruined remains of the wall to keep from falling over. Confusion washed over him. Washington D.C. wasn't an earthquake-prone region, and whatever damage the nukes had done, they hadn't fucked up the Earth enough to fracture the tectonic plates. Were the aliens so powerful that they were able to inflict natural disasters onto the world?

And then he saw it. A patch of ground around half a mile away from the Citadel opened up. For a moment, Marco thought that a fissure was splitting the earth open with its force. Then his brain caught up with his knee jerk conclusions. The opening was far too neat and even for it to be a natural disaster. In fact, the more it opened, the more it became clear that it was taking on the shape of a perfect rectangle. Squinting his eyes, Marco saw that the interior of the hole was lined, not with rock and dirt, but metal plating. Not the otherworldly colored metal of the alien spacecraft, but the gunmetal gray of something built by humans.

"What the-" Marco began, but before he could finish his sentence, a loud crack echoed across the landscape. A sleek, purple craft rocketed out of the hole, turning and arcing with the same impossible ease that the alien ship was. For a second, Marco feared the worst. That new ship had the same design, look, and capabilities as the alien one. In the heat and confusion of the moment, Marco thought that a long-dormant ally of the alien had emerged to help it in purging the human scum.

These thoughts died as the newcomer turned, closed on the surprised alien ship, and unleashed a hail of plasma fire onto it. Marco blinked dumbly. The two ships began to duck and weave, each attempting to gain a bead on the other and score direct hits. No attention was given to any of the men and women on the ground anymore. Marco's wits came back to him. "Change of plans, supporting fire! Do everything you can to help the newcomer!" Tesla energy arced from the cannon over his shoulder as a mix of missiles, lasers, and white energy from weapons that had been reverse-engineered from salvaged Mothership Zeta technology filled the sky.

The dogfight between the two ships was arcing higher and higher into the sky, to the point where it was becoming hard to tell the difference between the two already similar ships. The only recognizable trait separating the two was that the one that had emerged from the ground wasn't smoking, but when they were rapidly ascending a thin trail of smoke became near impossible to spot with the naked eye. Marco's main method of separating the two had been to follow the first one with laser focus precision, a method that was proving to be difficult to maintain with the speed at which the two were zipping about. At this rate, Marco wasn't even certain how much longer they would be within effective weapons range.

This, however, proved to not be relevant. The newer, less damaged craft, suddenly dropped its engine speed as the alien ship attempted to pursue it from behind. The alien ship sped past it before it could correct itself and took another hail of plasma fire. Even from their distance, Marco could tell that this blow was a fatal one. Smoke plumed out of the back of it the ship, thick and black now, as it began to spiral downwards towards the ground. A few bright lights glowed on the side as if they were somehow attempting to correct the fall, but these efforts bore no fruit. The alien ship continued its freefall downward, corkscrewing every step of the way before it finally hit the ground. Dirt sprayed upward as if a bomb had been detonated, the ship skidding along on pure momentum before eventually coming to a stop a couple hundred meters away from the cover that the Pride had been laying down defensive fire from.

Jubilation coursed through Marco. The alien ship was down, he and his men had only been able to inflict superficial damage on the thing, and now its wings had been clipped. When he looked more closely, he noticed that the ship was disturbingly intact for something that had just been bombarded with plasma and sent into a freefall, but it didn't appear to be capable of taking flight anytime soon. Rationality kicked in, however, and he forced his excitement down. He had no idea where the allegiances of the other ship laid. The Tesla cannon was still in his hand and he aimed it upward. "Keep an eye on that thing, we don't want to end up right back where we started!" he ordered. His eyes stayed firmly on the ship that was still in the air, and the clinking of armor behind him told him that the other members of the Pride were taking aim as well.

The second that the alien ship had been downed, the unknown contact had come to an abrupt halt. It was now hovering, making minor maneuvers as it repositioned itself back above the hole it had emerged from. Engines hummed, barely audible even from this comparatively short distance, as it slid back into the hole that it had come from. "Eyes on, that thing can't be all that was down there," Marco ordered. "Advance up and give me a threat assessment."

But he had only taken a few steps when he heard Gallows voice, a rare event if there ever was one, call out. "Movement by the wreckage!" Marco's attention snapped back. A trio of lumbering, humanoid creatures, just barely shorter than Super Mutants, had stumbled out of an opening hatch. They all wore thick armor, red and gold, that covered every inch of them and carried bright silver weapons with green lights glowing along the barrel. Disturbingly, their weapons were bigger than the average man and had barrels that Marco could comfortably fit his fist into. The aliens's movements were erratic and confused, similar symptoms to those who had been recently concussed.

Marco quickly assessed the situation as he looked at the trio of aliens. That armor looked as if it was even hardier than their power armor, and the aliens were twice their size on top of that. If they had anywhere near the same level of durability, they were looking at big targets that would be able to take an absurd amount of damage before going down. Placing the Tesla cannon on the ground, he drew a silver sidearm that he had taken from the captain of Mothership Zeta. He ducked back down into cover and turned to Vargas and Glade

"Armor looks tough, focus your fire, lead most one. Don't stay out in the open, we don't know if our armor can handle their weapons," Marco whispered. Vargas and Glade both nodded, Vargas swapping his laser rifle for one of the experimental pistols the Scribes has put together based on Mothership Zeta's weapons. The pistol was one of the ugliest things Marco had ever seen, it looked like a box with a grip, but he had also seen the pistol punch through Enclave power armor when they had been hunting down stragglers from the war.

"Vargas, get the others to cover us," Marco whispered. At once, Vargas began to sign to the other half of the Pride, signs that Marco recognized. We're engaging the enemy, provide heavy support fire. In the distance, he saw a flash of light, no doubt from Dusk. It was a confirmation. "Now."

The three of them rose up, their weapons firing in unison. The trio of aliens, which had been steadily advancing on their position, were caught off guard. Two streams of white energy and a missile struck the middle, lead alien. Death came quickly and without mercy. A howl escaped the alien as multiple blasts caught it directly in the chest, its armor melting under the strain before the missile detonated and engulfed it. It was hard to say what exactly had killed it, but by the time the momentary dust cloud from the missile had vanished, the alien's partially liquidized body had crumpled to the ground. The Pride has claimed their first kill.

Now, however, the aliens had seen their hand. Both of them opened fire, plasma spewing from their cannons at an alarming rate as they moved in opposite directions. Fire from the reserve half of the Pride rained down on them every step of the way, their armor groaning and buckling with every shot.

Marco ducked back down behind cover, checking on Vargas and Glade. Vargas peeking just over the edge of the masonry that they were hiding behind while Glade was reloading his sliding a fresh missile into his weapon. His mind was running ahead, plotting their next vector of attack.

But, just at that moment, the cover that Glade had been taking cover behind was consumed. Green energy licked through the piece of wall as it melted into sludge before moving onto Glade. His power armor might as well have not been there, the force of the plasma was so fierce. The chassis was torn apart, a hole tore open that left Glade himself vulnerable. He collapsed to the ground, screaming, his now exposed black from the burns, bones popping through.

Horror spread through Marco, but at the same time, his mind was doing hasty number crunching. The aliens had been able to do that through power armor and at least a foot of cover. Bunkering down and trying to whittle the aliens away would only lead to the Pride being torn apart. Every shot that the aliens took could be crippling or worse. This fight had to end.

Popping up, he took aim and began to fire. Normally he would duck down after firing a few shots in a situation like this, but the cover that they had was worthless. Without viable defense, offense was all he truly had left. Orb after orb of white energy emerged from the barrel of his pistol, all of them trained on one of the two surviving aliens. This one had its weapon lowered; it was the one who had just fired on Glade. The better part of a dozen shots found their mark, managing to work through even the thick alloys of the alien's armor, sickly yellow blood spilling onto the ground through now burnt plates. It roared in agony, attempting to aim its weapon, but one last blast caught it in the head. All movement stopped after that. The heavy weapon went slack in its hands and it began to tumble forward.

But there was no time to watch it fall to the ground. The sole remaining alien had turned on Marco with practiced precision and opened fire. Instead of ducking down, Marco threw himself to the side, his armor scraping across the rubble as he did. An explosion tore into where he had just been, utterly consuming his bit of over and expanding outwards. Barely a second later, a second explosion happened a few feet closer to Marco, just barely coming short. "Hey, ugly!" Vargas shouted, aiming his experimental pistol and firing. Marco couldn't see what happened, but an inhuman roar indicated that he had most likely hit his mark. "Dusk! Pop his dome!" A mere second later, the roar of a sniper rifle echoed out. There was silence, followed by a heavy thump. No further explosions followed. Marco didn't need to see to know what had happened. Besides, he had more important things to focus on.

"Glade!" Marco said at once, his voice hoarse as he got to his feet. Vargas nodded, kneeling down over the wounded Paladin, producing both Med-X and a stimpack. Both were injected and Glade's screams lessened, though they did not cease. "Get him out of his armor. Take his arms, I'll take his legs." Vargas was already ripping open the heavy weapon specialist's ruined armor. Within seconds, the two of them had reduced the wounded man to his underclothes and Marco began to asses the extent of the damage. He had barely started when he was interrupted. A voice echoed out, coming from no clear source.

"Pitiful. They've fallen so far. After showing such promise." A pillar of purple light erupted out of nowhere, reaching down from the sky and engulfing the ground. Marco's eyes automatically closed into a squint, barely able to see. Then, just as soon as the light had come, it vanished. And in its place was a humanoid figure, two feet taller than him, clad in black armor. An unsheathed sword was in the figure's hand. Its face was a pale blue with glowing violet eyes, not a strand of hair on top of its head. It gave a frown before speaking with a voice that was surprisingly female.

"The Elders send their Assassin to decapitate mighty armies. And all she finds is a burnt-out husk of a world, host to nothing but maggots. How disappointing." She paused, turning to face the hole in the ground. A small, find smile spread across her face. "But through it all, XCOM has survived? Very well. Through all the disappointment, at least your species will have a swan song worth remembering." Marco's pistol was up, but before he could pull the trigger, the Assassin shimmered. She was gone.

Blinking, Marco scanned the area. Had whatever the hell that woman was just shown up to give a soliloquy before vanishing back to where she had come from? Somehow, he didn't think so. The pillar of light that had brought her here, something that was somehow only the fifth weirdest thing he had seen today, was different from the mere shimmer. Marco turned ever so slowly, scanning the area with his pistol. "Commander?" Vargas was looking at him, his expression hidden behind his helmet, but Marco could tell he was waiting for orders. Glade's screams of pain were getting softer in the worst way possible. He was fading away.

"Get Glade out of here, I'll cover you," he said. That was all Vargas needed to here. Power armor-clad arms wrapped around Glade, his frame easy to life now that it was free of armor. Vargas made a quick sign to the rest of the Pride before he began to sprint in their direction. He only made three steps. Marco had been expecting an attack, but even he was caught off by how rapidly it had come. Nevertheless, his pistol snapped to position and he fired. There was another shimmer and the Assassin was visible, a glowing white ball of energy heading straight for her head.

By all rights, the shot was perfect, particularly considering it was on a target that had only been visible for a mere second. But it never found its mark. Just before the shot would've made contact, the Assassin slid forward, ducking her head, and it passed harmlessly over. Vargas stumbled backward, holding onto Glade with one arm as he leveled his pistol with the other. He fired a point-blank shot as the Assassin lunged forward. Whatever metahuman level reflexes she had allowed her to dodge Marco's shot apparently didn't allow her to avoid weapons being fired at a range that close. The blast hit her dead in the chest, an orange glow blossoming out from it as tiny bits of her armor flaked off, accompanied by droplets of orange blood. The wound was a flesh wound, however, and did not stop her forward momentum.

Time seemed to slow down as the tip of her sword slid, almost with graceful precision, into a gap in Vargas's armor. The one between his helmet and chest plate. Even though he was only a few steps away, Marco couldn't hear a thing. A primal part of his brain told him that the lack of sound was a reason to hope; the alien had clearly missed. She had attempted to be fancy and poetic and the result had cost her an opening. But that piece of him was a piece of him that didn't understand the nuances of advanced technology. The more active and critical part of his mind saw the Assassin's blade draw back. It was coated with blood.

Vargas didn't make a sound. Marco wasn't even certain if he had realized what had happened before it was too late. He tumbled backward, his body slack, his brain not sending any instructions to the rest of her body. Nothing about the situation made sense, a slit throat wasn't an instantaneous death. Then it hit him. There were no motor responses whatsoever. The Assassin had severed Vargas's spine.

All of this happened in the space of about a second. Never having lowered his pistol, Marco continued to fire. Five more orbs were sent flying in the Assassin's direction. Marco's hands were shaking in fury now, he wanted to scream in rage at the alien. The hatred that had started to boil in him only intensified as the Assassin ducked down under the shots and made a shallow swipe with her sword. He couldn't see what she had hit, but Glade's cries of pain were instantly snuffed out as she did it. Glade and Vargas, men who had been in the Pride longer than Marco had been, were both dead.

How many people had died today because of these aliens? How many Scribes, Knights, and Paladins were dead because of the strafing runs? And now what had the number risen to with Glade and Vargas thrown on top of the pile? And now the Assassin's glowing, violet eyes focused on him. She gave a cocky smirk, baring her sharpened teeth. Marco abandoned all trigger discipline and fired without restraint.

The Assassin began to bound forward. As she did, one of the multitudes of blasts Marco was firing managed to hit her in the leg. Whatever armor she had there seemed to be weaker, as he was rewarded with a splash of orange blood on the ground and a wince of pain from the Assassin for his efforts. Nevertheless, she recovered nearly instantaneously, shifting her weight onto the other leg and resuming her charge. The speed at which she was closing on him with her sword made her feel more like a panther than a warrior. Her eyes were sparkling with life. She was in her element.

She ducked and weaved as she closed the distance between them at a frightening pace, made worse by how small the gap was. Another shot took her in the chest, this one melting through enough to draw blood again, but her pace did not slacken. And then she was upon him, ready to thrust forward with her sword. _She's going to go for the throat!_ He wanted nothing more than to keep shooting, to hope and pray that he would be able to get lucky and blow her face clean off. But it wasn't in the cards, and if he didn't act fast, he was going to share the same fate as his fallen brothers in arms. He doubled back, crossing his arms in front of his throat as the blade came forward.

His armor helped, but not as much as he would have liked. Whatever alloy the Assassin had in the edge of her blade was sharper and stronger than any material Marco had encountered on Earth, for it tore through his power armor. Not without resistance, he could feel the blade losing momentum and force as it dug through the upper side of his right bracer, but the damage it was doing was nothing short of frightening. Marco hissed as blood leaked out of his right arm, slipping past the blade and dripping onto the ground. The important thing, however, was that it had stopped an inch short of his throat.

He jerked upward, attempting to knock the sword out of her hands. There was an inch or two of movement, as well as a look of surprise from the Assassin, but she recovered quickly, tightening her grip. "You have spirit. Admirable," she said. As a response, Marco drove his power armor clad knee into her chest. This got a much better reaction out of her, causing her to hiss and double over in pain. Finally, her sword was wrenched loose. His arm still on fire with pain, Marco pressed the barrel of his silver, alien weapon directly between the eyes of the Assassin. No more dodging, no more dead Paladins and Knights. He pulled the trigger.

The resulting explosion of gray matter and blood coated the front of his armor. Now headless, the body of the Assassin tumbled backward. However, before it even hit the ground, another pillar of purple light engulfed the body, forcing Marco to cover his eyes. After a moment, it vanished, along with the body. He blinked in confusion. Then he heard the voice. "Impressive. Most impressive. Even the death of your world does not rob humanity of its steel." His blood ran cold. It was the Assassin's voice. But how? He had blown her brains out. "I look forward to our next meeting. I only hope it is I and not my brothers who find your first. Farewell."

Marco stood there, at a loss for words. Whatever sense of victory he had eeked out of killing the Assassin was gone now. Some sort of magic was at play here, or trickery or whatever, Marco didn't particularly care what the explanation was. All he knew was that too many people were dead and whatever setbacks these aliens had suffered were minor inconveniences at worst. The Assassin, if that had been her and not some cruel trick, didn't even sound annoyed at her death. And she had promised to come back.

"COMMANDER!" Marco was broken out of his thoughts. Dusk was calling for him. He looked up. Then he swore, holstering his pistol and grabbing the dropped Tesla cannon. The hole in the ground, the one he had utterly forgotten, was still open. Two helicopters with twin rotors had risen out of it and were now in the process of landing. In reality, they had most likely been maneuvering to land for the last minute, he had simply not noticed. He wasn't sure how though, their rotors were so loud that it was almost deafening.

Hastily, he recovered the Tesla cannon. Hoisting it up over his shoulder, he took aim, ready to down them should they give him a reason. The first helicopter had landed near the downed alien ship, men and women in bulky black armor jumping off. Weapons that looked very similar to the ones the giant aliens had used were in their hands, except for the headmost one, who carried a flamethrower. The huddled up near one of the entrances to the ship until the flamethrower trooper took point, their weapon belching fire into the depths of the enemy ship.

The other helicopter had landed right on top of him. His grip tightened. More figures in armor disembarked, these ones with purple instead of black armor. They too had plasma weapons in hand, but none of them were being pointed in Marco's direction. He still didn't lower the Tesla cannon. "Hold fire, we're friendly." The leader of the group stepped forward. He was a middle-aged man with white hair, a scarred face, and Asian features of some kind. A soft smile crossed his lips. "My name is Zhang, XCOM colonel. Yours?"

Marco glanced behind him. The rest of the Pride was still bunkered up, weapons at the ready. All of them would be willing to throw themselves into another fight if he ordered them to. He signed for them to remain on standby. Paranoia never hurt. "Marco, Brotherhood of Steel," he said hesitantly. "What's XCOM?"

"Extraterrestrial Combat Unit," Zhang replied. "A UN organization activated in 2015 to combat otherworldly threats to humanity." Marco blinked. 2015? That long before the war? No. That couldn't be right. The Brotherhood would've found evidence of such an organization. Was Zhang lying to him? Was this some sort of trick? "May I ask what the Brotherhood is?" He glanced at the ruins of the Citadel. "Some sort of Pentagon defense force?"

"Protectors of knowledge from the Great War, as well as its survivors," Marco said, still not taking his Tesla cannon off of the helicopter. It would be easy to reduce it to slag from this position. "How is there supposed to be an alien combat force from so long ago? We only just realized we were dealing with them."

Zhang frowned. "I can assure you that contact with these aliens was made in 2015. And protectors of knowledge from the Great War? How can you protect knowledge from the alien war if you aren't aware of it?"

Something horrible was lurking at the back of Marco's mind. Ever since he had seen these strangers, this XCOM, he had been under the impression that they had held all the pieces of the puzzle in regards to whatever the hell was going on. Now though? It seemed that they were missing the basic fundamentals. "No...the Great War in 2077. The nuclear one."

He had thrown the last bit of information out there as an experiment. The results spoke for themselves. Zhang stared blankly at him before turning his attention back to the Citadel. "You're shitting me!" A woman with noticeably plasma burn scars on her face stepped forward, her auburn hand wrapped into a ponytail. She looked horrified. "The Ethereals didn't do this? It was-no! No goddamn way! There's no way they were stupid enough to throw nukes at each other!"

"I must agree with Lieutenant Wilder," Zhang said, sounding shaken. "I don't understand. NATO, the Warsaw Pact, and the People's Republic of China all banded together to form XCOM. We defeated the Ethereal invasion because we were able to stand together. It was very clear that the Ethreals were still a threat after our victory, we only parried their invasion force. How? Why? What happened?"

Marco gave Zhang a sympathetic look. It was disorienting. These people had come out of nowhere with technology that rivaled the most advanced he had ever seen, they had plucked a UFO out of the sky with speed and precision, but now they were stumbling about, stunned at knowledge that every Wastelander learned as a child. "Resources ran out. Europe and the Middle-East tore each other apart. China invaded Alaska for oil. It became too much. That's what people say anyway. This all happened two centuries ago." No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't bring himself to get too worked up over the Great War. He could understand how horrible it was on a logical level, but he had always had more pressing and immediate matters to worry about. There had never been much point in mourning events that only the oldest of Ghouls could remember.

"Fuck," Lieutenant Wilder swore. Marco had never seen a person deflate the way she was. Her entire body slackened and the light vanished from her eyes. A pang of sympathy struck through him, even if everything about this current situation made no sense. "After everything we did? After all the discoveries and innovations that Vahlen and Shen made, we still ended up bombing ourselves to oblivion over oil? How? Just...how?"

Marco finally lowered the Tesla cannon. If these people wanted to kill him, they would've done it by now. They wouldn't have stood around looking lost and confused. "Look, you need to clear some things up for me. 2015? How the heck is an organization that old still around after all those years? And where the hell did you get such advanced stuff? Pre-War America never had anything like that or any other nation for that fact. Plasma weapons, yeah we got that, but nothing that can punch like the things the aliens had."

Zhang looked at the Citadel again. Nostalgia and sorrow were present in equal measure in his eyes. He sighed. "We were put into cryostasis to be prepared for the next Ethereal attack," he said. "All of XCOM's personnel, combat and non-combat related. As for why our technology appears to be more advanced, we utilized alloys and materials we recovered from alien UFOs. Alloys and materials that we were unable to successfully synthesize, only salvage. Our scientists suspected that they naturally occur off of Earth, or at least require materials that aren't native to our planet."

Zhang gestured to the downed alien craft. Fire was blooming out of it, as well as distinctly inhuman screams. "Once Staff-Sergeant Le Goff is done clearing that UFO, we'll be stripping it for parts and salvage, give R&D something to work with for the first time in a long time." Zhang looked at Marco, eyeing his armor. "If I had to take a guess, I'd say a lot of the equipment you have now was an attempt to mimic what XCOM had developed without access to alien resources. You did say you had plasma weaponry?"

Marco nodded dumbly. This was all a massive amount to take in. "That's potentially the reason. Now. I must contact my superior. I think you should do so as well. I feel we have a good deal to discuss."

XXXXX

Central Officer Bradford was having what was quite possibly the worst day of his life. He thought Operation Devil's Moon had been that, first contact with an extraterrestrial force that had proven itself to be hostile, competent, and technologically superior. But somehow that had all been surpassed as he walked through the shattered remains of the Pentagon. In many ways, he had feared the worst ever since the first Ethereal attack. Countless nightmares about humanity devastated, their greatest works laid to waste, had plagued his sleep. But it had always been alien inflicted destruction. They had never done it to himself.

He forced himself to stay composed as he walked through the Pentagon. Lieutenant Virginia Wilder was on his right, Colonel Osvaloo Hernandez on his left. Both of them were veterans from the Long War, as it was officially known, some of the oldest in XCOM. Virginia had been transferred to XCOM shortly after the alien attacks had started, while Osvaloo had been there since the beginning. Both of them were in Titan armor and clutching an alloy cannon and heavy plasma machine-gun respectively. Bradford was wearing his usual blues (or greens as many jokingly called it) with a plasma pistol holstered at his side.

In most circumstances, heading into unknown territory with only two guards and a sidearm would be something he would never allow. But this Brotherhood that was now occupying the ruins of the Pentagon had refused to allow a larger escort in. He couldn't blame them, he had already seen charred and crushed bodies being laid out in the courtyard, more victims of the Ethereals. But still, he couldn't help but keep a steady eye on every last figure in power armor that they crossed, just in case it came to a fight. Whatever those suits if theirs were, even if they weren't Titan armor, they looked as if they would make any fight a tough one.

Eventually, he was led to a conference room that Bradford could have sworn he had been in nearly three-hundred years ago. A dozen different generals with more medals than he could count had crowded around a table as he had walked in, trying hard not to shake with fear. Back then, the Commander had, effectively, sent him to beg the United States to continue funding XCOM. It had taken a live weapon demonstration of the new laser rifles and a donation of a dozen of them to keep America funding them. XCOM has badly needed those rifles for their operatives, but they would have gone under without the funding. Even now, the memory made Bradford snarl. In hindsight, the Brotherhood's welcome was actually warmer than the US military's.

The conference room was barren and cracked now, as opposed to its original appearance of new furniture, bright lights, and an overabundance of crusty old men who wanted to defund Bradford. Now there were six soldiers in the odd power armor standing behind a blonde woman in conservative blue robes. The hard eyes, firm posture, and shrapnel scars across the cheek of the woman told Bradford he was dealing with a leader who had spent plenty of time on the front lines.

He held out his hand. "Central Officer John Bradford, here to speak on behalf of the Commander of XCOM. She would be here herself but she's facing health complications." The Commander had always been on the older side, and she was taking the exit from cryo worse than everyone else. "I've been told she should be fit for duty after three days of bed rest." He hoped. They had lost so much, they couldn't afford to lose the Commander.

The woman took his hand in a firm grip. "Sarah Lyons, Elder of the East Coast Brotherhood of Steel," she said firmly. "You saved a lot of my people out there. Please, have a seat." Bradford modded in thanks as he sat in the battered remains of a chair, Sarah doing the same. "Marco tells me that XCOM is an anti-alien task force? Put in cryostasis to wait for the next alien attack?"

"Yes ma'am," Bradford said. "We had the biggest concentration of Long War veterans in the world, the UN didn't want us to go to waste. If the aliens had slower than light travel, it might take them decades to launch another assault. No one could afford to get another batch of greenhorns up to snuff, so they wanted us on standby. Our gear too, since we had the most experience with it." They had needed to fight tooth and nail to keep their top of the line gear. Every country had wanted it for themselves after the invasion was over. The only way the Commander had been able to convince them to let XCOM keep enough equipment to operate was to assure them that XCOM was politically neutral and that a plasma rifle in XCOM's hands was a plasma rifle a rival country would never have.

Bradford remembered feeling so frustrated by all of it. He had thought that the threat of aliens would be enough for nations to put aside their grudges and work towards a common good. But it seemed that they had needed a direct threat hanging over their heads to get them to stop squabbling. "We got awakened when our satellites detected an Ethereal craft." He looked around sadly. "And we found this. They really nuked themselves, didn't they?"

"Yes," Sarah said bluntly. "But that doesn't matter. It's ancient history." Bradford was mildly amused. Elder Lyons was a no-nonsense leader, it seemed. "What matters is the fact that these Ethereals of yours? They've attacked us. My people are dead. I need to know what you plan to do to respond to this."

"The same thing we always do," Bradford said. "Shoot down their UFOs, counter their assaults, find their base and smoke them out of it. We'll be gathering whatever allies we can find too." He tilted his head. They knew who XCOM was now, time for them to return the favor. "Is the Brotherhood the ruling power in the area?"

"De facto, not de jure," Sarah said. "We've been the biggest supplier of clean water, and indirectly the biggest supporter of agriculture, for years now, on top of providing security to the region. We've cleared out all major raider and mutant threats in the capital area, and we are the most well-equipped group within it. Our mission is to provide stability to the area, and we've done a good job these last few years." Her eyes narrowed. "Why do you ask?"

"Our radios aren't picking up anything on our usual channels," Bradford said. "No governments hung on anywhere. We have no one." Part of him felt that he shouldn't be sharing that, that it was classified information. The look Sarah gave him, however, was utterly lacking in surprise. He was stating the obvious to them. "We have no allies, and we're eager to make some. Lieutenant?"

Virginia shifted. She had been carrying a heavy leather bag on her back, one that she was now removing. With a grunt, she placed it on the table, sliding it to Sarah. Gesturing to one of her guards, Sarah eyed it. The guard reached in, pulling out thick, overstuffed paper binders. "Those are copies of everything we have on the Ethereals. They have thralls that fight for them, they rarely do it themselves. The ones your forces engaged were Mutons, the Ethereal's heavy infantry." Bradford hoped that this would be enough of a gesture of good faith to get the Brotherhood on semi-friendly terms, at the very least.

Sarah's expression softened. Pulling the binders towards her, she began to flick through them. After a minute of reading through the computer printed papers and Vahlen's messy handwriting, she looked up. "This is very thorough, thank you. But where is the section on the alien that attacked Marco? The Assassin?"

Bradford sucked in air through his teeth. So much of what he had been told since he had gotten out of the pod haunted him. But this Assassin? An alien that didn't seem to truly die? That was going to keep him awake at night for months, he could tell. "This is our first encounter with her as well. The Ethereals never displayed capabilities like that in the Long War."

Sarah stared at him, looking unpleasantly surprised. She had clearly been hoping for answers from him. "You're saying they're developed this Assassin in-between then and now?"

"Three centuries is a long time, they could have," Bradford said. "Or they simply didn't use her last time. You need to understand, every month the Ethereals threw something new at us. At the six month mark, they started deploying giant walkers that could fry tanks, Sectopods. They're towards the back." At once, Sarah turned towards the back of the binder. Concern slowly spread over her face as she saw the otherworldly bi-pod. She was starting to realize just how capable the aliens were. And Bradford hadn't even told her about psionics and brainwashing yet. He wouldn't share that horrible bit of news with her just yet, there was nothing to be gained from overloading her.

"What do they want with us?" Sarah asked, not taking her eyes off of the binder. "Earth's resources? Slaves? Self-gratification?"

A question he had asked more times than he could count. "We suspect the second. Most likely they wanted to add humanity to its armies. What's left of it when they're done with us, anyway. There's enough cloning done in their bases that maybe they wanted to scrap up our ashes and tank breed a whole new human race. A subservient one."

Sarah sighed as she closed the binder. "Just when we were making progress, stabilizing the region," she said, more to herself than anyone else.

"Sir, permission to speak?" Colonel Osvaloo said suddenly. Sarah looked at him in surprise.

"Granted," Bradford said.

"Thank you sir," Oosvalo said. "Elder Lyons? I share your frustration. We've seen so many people die to the Ethereals. XCOM, military, and civilians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The dead are beyond counting." Bradford looked at the Colonel. At the moment, it was covered by armor, but Bradford couldn't help but think of what lay underneath. A tattoo of four delta symbols, each with a number next to it, one through four. The numbers one, three, and four all had a solid black line through them. "And I can only imagine what the Brotherhood has been through fighting through a broken world." There was a flash in Sarah's eyes, a flash that spoke volumes on exactly what they had been through. "From what I've learned, the fight is never really over. There's always something else. All you can do is constantly prepare yourself for what comes next."

His face twisted. "And beat them at their own game. Take every little trick they ever learned and use it against them. Make them regret picking a fight with you."

Sarah looked thoughtfully at him. There was a moment of understanding between the two that Bradford recognized. It was familiarity shared by those who had seen too much. "These aliens won't ever stop?" Sarah asked. Bradford shook his head. Not until they were all dead. Sarah steeled herself. "Then it seems you have a tentative ally in the area. We're in this fight whether we like it or not, it seems. Are there any additional resources you can provide for us?"

Smiling, even if it was a pathetic half-smile, Bradford began to list the pre-approved list of assets that the Commander was willing to part with. They had woken up in a broken world that they didn't recognize. It tore him apart in ways he couldn't even begin to describe. So much of what they had fought to protect was gone. Burned. Forgotten. But humanity was still there. Their mission hadn't gone away. The Brotherhood hadn't given up, neither could XCOM. And they never would.

Author's Note: Fun fact, I never got far in Xenonauts (That game fucks me up royally) but I took a bit of inspiration from it for a more cold war style XCOM (I know some people are easing up on The Bureau and looking back on it with fond memories...I am not one of them. So I looked elsewhere for Cold War era XCOM.)

I would like to thank my Patrons, SuperFeatherYoshi, xXNanamiXx, RaptorusMaximus, Davis Swinney, Mackenzie Buckle, Ryan Van Schaack, ChaosSpartan575, and LordofNaught for their amazing support.


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